//
Photo: Charles Edwin Fripp, Public domain via Wikimedia Commons
On 22 January 1879 the British Camp at Isandlwana was overrun by 20,000 Zulu leaving 1357 British Soldiers and colonial auxiliaries dead. Two survivors managed to escape and warn the British Force at Rorke's Drift of an impending attack. Today the battlefield has memorials to those killed. A visitor centre and museum (where the entrance fee is paid) is about 1.5 km due north of the main battlefield. It is advised that the services of a guide be sought at the museum.
The Battle of Isandlwana on 22 January 1879 was the second major encounter in the Anglo-Zulu War between the British Empire and the Zulu Kingdom – the Battle of Nyezane having been fought and won earlier on the same day by Colonel Pearson's Coastal Column. Eleven days after the British invaded the Zulu Kingdom in Southern Africa, a Zulu force of some 20,000 warriors attacked a portion of the British main column consisting of approximately 1,800 British, colonial and native troops with approximately 350 civilians. The Zulus were equipped mainly with the traditional assegai iron spears and cow-hide shields, but also had a number of muskets and antiquated rifles.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
During the Battle of Rorke's Drift, about 150 British soldiers repelled repeated attacks by 4000 Zulu warriors for a period of 12 hours. Eleven Victoria Crosses were awarded, the most in any one day in British history. The museum is housed in what was Jim Rorke's trading post which was built in 1847. The film Zulu is about this battle and has a young Michael Caine in his first major role.
In 1871 the second French Empire collapsed and Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte fled to Britain. He died in 1873 and his son, Prince Louis Napoleon (the Prince Imperial) became the heir to the Bonapartist tradition. The Prince Imperial trained at Sandhurst and as the Zulu War was drawing to a close travelled to South Africa to see some action. Although there were strict instructions that he was to be kept out of danger, a reconnaissance party of which he was a member was ambushed and he was killed. A monument, paid for by Queen Victoria, now marks the spot where he died.
A museum set in a park that exhibits local history, industry and crafts. The museum also has a reconstruction of a local Zulu kraal.